


The Ongoing Drama of Shared Experience (Or Something Like That)

by BrassHorse



Category: Jake and Amir
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 14:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18390167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrassHorse/pseuds/BrassHorse
Summary: The morning after Jake is drugged and assaulted at a bar, he tries not to piece together what actually happened. Amir sort of helps, or mostly doesn't, depending on how you look at it.





	The Ongoing Drama of Shared Experience (Or Something Like That)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a line in Tim Minchin's song "If I Didn't Have You", which is not at all about this subject, but is very good.

"Heyyy man!" Amir laughs that grating high laugh and Jake's head throbs. Amir's been at work for two seconds and it's already too long. "You look like death!"

Jake means to say something sarcastic, but ends up just grunting. Even that hurts his head. The lights are too bright and his whole body aches. Amir's voice is like a buzz saw.

"What a bum night, right?" Amir goes on, undeterred. "Well cheer up, cause I brought you the best hangover cure in the business, biznitch, guaranteed to revive people dead in a ditch!"

Amir plonks down a glass of something putrid green, grinning and staring intently into Jake's face for any sign of gratitude at all. Jake struggles not to be sick.

(He remembers vomiting until there's nothing left in his stomach, and dry heaves so constant he can barely breathe between them.)

"I fuckin' hate you," he groans. "What the fuck is that?"

"Family recipe," Amir says smugly.

"Really," Jake manages, "cause it smells like something you dug out of a sewer."

Amir laughs too loud and shoves it across the desk at him. "Hah hah, joke's on you, cause you're the one who got dug out of a sewer, am I right?"

(He remembers a muddy puddle in the alley soaking into his clothes. Voices laughing. "He's practically asleep right now, how much of that shit did you give him?")

"Throw it away," Jake says, trying to shake the thought away. "It's rotten. You're disgusting."

Amir refuses to take it back. He plonks himself into his chair and smiles a subtle little smile, locking his hands behind his head. "Desk looks pretty empty. No computer today?"

Jake leans on his desktop, head in hands, and wonders if the pressure in his skull is going to make his eyeballs pop out of his head. He'd stumbled into work barely coherent and barely able to move and of course he'd forgotten the computer.

There is a loud bang and there it is on the desktop. Jake looks up. Amir is still sitting in his chair somehow. "You brought ... my computer," Jake says. "But not yours."

"Like I was gonna carry two laptops into work? Hell naaaaw!" Amir blows a raspberry. "I already came in like, six hours early to bring it to you."

"You're on time for work right now." Jake has no idea why he's doing this, but the words just won't stop. He can't listen to the shit that comes out of Amir's mouth and not respond to it. "You came in on time. You didn't come in early."

"Yeah, well, I was up all night, so why go to sleep now?" Amir shrugs. "I'm logging overtime, baby."

"You're not," Jake groans helplessly, massaging his throbbing temples. "Would you just be quiet for a little bit?"

(He remembers hearing noises, animal sounds of pain and he thinks, 'who is that?' Then someone's fist rams into his face and a voice shouts "Jesus, shut up, bitch!" and he realises that noise is him.)

He boots up the computer, feeling sick to his stomach. Then he has to blink to get the screen into focus. "Why were you in my apartment? Why would you assume I hadn't brought my computer?"

(He doesn't know how long he's in the alley after, just that he's bloody and sore and he can't raise his head without the world turning upside down.)

Amir taps his nose with an annoying smirk. "Really wanna know?"

Jake looks at him over the screen and feels like crying, and isn't sure why. This is Amir at his most normal. He's just in a lot of pain and fragments of memory keep worrying at the back of his mind and he feels like he hasn't slept in years.

He looks away again. "No."

(He doesn't know where he is. He can't find his keys. Someone helps him slide to the floor and lean against cool porcelain and he vomits into the toilet until his chest and throat hurt.)

"I'm always in your apartment, Jake," Amir says in his best attempt at a spooky voice, giving him an enigmatic look over the top of the desk. "Also, you should hide your keys better. And hide your laptop worse, seriously, it took me forever to find it in there."

"I didn't ask you to trespass in my apartment."

"You didn't have to," Amir says. "I know you wanted it."

Jake's skin crawls. "Shut up," he says, feeling exposed. "Don't say that."

(How many were there, two, three? Everything is a blur. He remembers another body, hands, voices - but who and how many? It slips through his fingers like water.)

Amir laughs, but he actually doesn't push the subject. Jake barely notices. He tries to concentrate on the laptop screen, but his focus keeps slipping away. He feels like he's trying to put together a jigsaw with half the pieces missing and he doesn't want to see the full picture anyway.

After a few moments of blessed silence, Amir pipes up again. "Soooo. You look pretty shitty. What say we head out, chill a little at your apartment?"

(Jake remembers Amir's voice. He doesn't remember any words, just a voice, muffled and distant, the familiar huff of a chuckle at the end of a sentence, the nasal laugh.)

"Amir," he says, hollowly. "Did you drug my drink last night?"

"Why would you--"

"Because," Jake says. He already wishes he hadn't asked. He doesn't really want to know. His mouth just runs on without him, and he struggles in the dust left behind and wants to forget everything. "I ended up ... there was ... look, I know you were there. Why would you do that?" (The movement of the body on top of his grinds his face into the dirty alley gravel, rhythmic as clockwork.) "What the hell were you--"

"I didn't," Amir says. His voice is blessedly quiet.

Jake stares at him silently. Now he can't seem to find any words at all.

"I just found you there. You know, I know what you need when your date is a 0/10."

"It wasn't--" Jake tries to say.

"Yeah, time to barf it out, get some eats, clean clothes, clean sheets, have a bath and forget the deets. It works, I swear."

(He soaks in warm water and Amir's voice drones on. He can't understand the words.)

(He eats a tub of yogurt without getting out of the water.)

(Amir's hand gently shakes his shoulder, rousing him from sleep. The bath has gone cold.)

"When have you ever had a bath," Jake says weakly. It's all he can manage.

Amir shrugs. "I don't," he says. "It slows down the healing process, duh. Sometimes I go float in somebody's pool for a while."

Jake rests his forehead in his hand. "It wasn't a date," he mutters, not knowing why. "I didn't even know them."

"People are shit, right?" Amir asks. His voice is casual, but when Jake looks up, his dark eyes are dull and distant.

"You went swimming?" Jake asks. "When .. this ... happened to you?"

"Well, no," Amir says, leaning back and kicking his feet up on the desk. "But I do now when I think about it too much. If there's a diving board, even better. You try to jump high enough to hit the ceiling. Then you really don't remember." Now he does laugh that manic laugh, and Jake finds himself laughing along even though he knows it probably wasn't a joke.

(Because he remembers Amir sitting by his bed while he drifts into a drug-hazed sleep, one hand on his back, not saying a word.)

"Come over next time," he says. "We'll go together."

Amir's face lights up. Jake knows he'll regret it later, but today, he doesn't at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Amir has had just so many terrible sexual experiences; I imagine he has his coping skills down to a T, even if they aren't particularly normal ones.
> 
> If there's anyone still reading in this fandom, I thank you very much for clicking here!


End file.
